


Enraptured

by LadyPrince



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 18:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18036938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyPrince/pseuds/LadyPrince
Summary: Surviving a plane crash, he desperately swims his way over to the lighthouse that stands in the middle of the ocean; a beacon of hope…That leads to an underground water city in which ‘Atlas’ is Jack’s only ally and way out of here.(Bioshock x Borderlands AU)





	Enraptured

**Author's Note:**

> A commissioned work originally posted on tumblr.
> 
>  **Original publish date:** 6th of March, 2016.

He’s inside a room. There’s a storm raging on outside, and Jack – thank his fading strength – has managed to swim his way towards the lighthouse, shining a beacon of hope in the dark. It’s… empty. No one else around; and Jack expects that.

What he doesn’t expect is a contraption with a lever inside it, and nothing more. It’s the only way to go, he supposes and—

Well. Jack doesn’t have a choice. Shaking and cold, he makes his way inside the contraption, pulls the lever, and jolts when it starts to take him down—

“Well,” he hears someone say and Jack tenses, “it seems you’re a survivor from that plane crash. Nice to meet’cha. Names _Atlas._ ” He doesn’t answer at first, eyes darting around, and he hears a sigh. “Probably not fun to hear the voice of a man you can’t see, eh?”

“You’ve got that right.” Jack hisses out, and the person – Atlas – is laughing. “Where the _hell_ – hfffshhh _it –_ where the hell are you?”

“I’m talkin’ to you via radio. I told you my name, didn’t I? Would you kindly tell me yours?”

He exhales once the contraption has come to a stop, takes a step outside, and tries to look around for where the voice is coming from. “Name’s _Jack._ ”

“Well then, Jack,” Atlas begins again, “I feel like we’re gonna have a mutually beneficial relationship. I want out, and you want out too, don’t you? I’ll help you. So, would you kindly follow my instructions?”

Every part of him tells him not to, but… again. What other choice does Jack actually have?

“Yeah. Sure. _Whatever._ ”

When he gets his hand on a gun, Jack finds himself more comfortable in Rapture, as Atlas calls it. It’s an underwater city surrounded by ‘big daddies’ and ‘little sisters’, splicers… ADAM—

God, Jack can’t begin to understand it, even when Atlas is there, explaining it all to him. “It’s the lifeblood of Rapture, Jack.” Atlas says, something off and distant in his voice, “and those girls – the little sisters – carry them. Those **_girls_** … aren’t human anymore.

“Rapture ate them up and spat them out, Jack. They _turned_ these innocent little girls into the monsters they are, hanging around the big daddies and helping them find their ‘Angels’.”

“Jesus.” Jack murmurs, because he’s thinking of Angel, how one of those girls – with her long black hair and her wide unseeing eyes – could have been Angel if he lived _here,_ here in this… underwater city instead.

There’s a sigh from Atlas’s end. “Would you kindly do me a favour and end their life, Jack? There’s an extraction point for all the Adam they have. Extract it, kill them, and end their suffering.

“It’s the only way.”

There’s a vending machine, Jack wants to say. Except it’s not really a vending machine, and it’s holding a tonic in it—“It’s a plasmid,” Atlas corrects when Jack voices that thought out loud, and he ends up stabbing himself in the arm with whatever the plasmid contains.

 _Jack’s screaming._ It’s— _shit,_ he has never felt a pain this horrible, and Atlas is cooing and talking to him, telling him that it’s going to be fine. It always hurts the first time. Then after that everything is going to be easier—

 _“You’ll be accepting plasmids as easily as breathing.”_ Everything goes dark, and that is the last thing he hears.

When he comes to, his arm is different. It’s throbbing with the plasmid he’s used. Electro bolt, is what it’s called, and it’s a weird feeling. “All you have to do is snap your fingers, Jack.

“I used plasmids too,” Atlas murmurs as Jack shocks a water of splicers, making them shriek from the pain before they fall over, limp. The electricity fades away, allowing Jack the safety, and he hums. “Then my arm got irreversibly infected. Had to amputate it and get a new one. All was left was my other arm, then.

“I didn’t get a plasmid again.”

“That gonna happen to me?”

“Nah. I won’t let it. You can trust me on that.”

The audio diaries around him tell him stories of people he doesn’t know anything about [Andrew Ryan and his lover, Rhys who sold the world, Fiona who tried to protest against Rhys and failed, a civil war], and doesn’t give a shit about, really. Atlas is interested in them, however, even when he’s going quiet at the recordings of some of them.

“It’s all a damn shame.” He hisses out, something bitter and angry curling in his voice, like hot fire being provoked, and Jack frowns. “Rapture _was_ going to be a good place- if you discount all the cuckoo doctors with their… disgusting opinions. Then Andrew Ryan had to ruin it all.”

“Andrew Ryan.” Jack repeats, something in him twisting with… a memory. Atlas is tsking then.

“Hopefully you’ll never get to meet him.”

Except he _does._ But it’s not in person, no. It’s through a broadcast on television, maybe a radio like Atlas too, and he’s making claims of slavery and the sort.

Jack shoots the monitor that the man’s ‘face’ is on, and Atlas is laughing. “Knew you were the right one!” His voice is fond, happy, and Jack growls. “Easy there, easy. I still didn’t know ya. Couldn’t blame me for being cautious.”

“Probably freakin’ can’t. You’re on _my_ side, right?”

“‘course I am, Jack. We need each other to get out.” He looks at the walls, takes in the _WHO IS ATLAS?_ posters of a brunet with his hands – one an advanced looking prosthetic, the other flesh – on his hips, wearing worker clothes. “I’ll get’cha outta here, and we can– you can even take Andrew Ryan down while we leave.

“Whaddayasay? Would you kindly help me kill him?”

“Seems like a damn jackass.” Jack murmurs out. “I’ll help ya, as long as you make sure I can getta out here and get back to where I belong.”

Atlas laughs. “We have a deal, Jack. I ain’t nothing like that god damn _rat bastard,_ Ryan, or anything like Rhys, so you’ve got _nothing_ to worry about.

“My word is _absolutely_ golden.”


End file.
